In my last proper job the parent firm decided to shut down the subsidiary where I worked.
On that day I made the probably the best business decision I’ve ever made – shut up and listen.
Because of this decision I managed to secure a fair bit of resources which enabled me to calmly decide what I wanted to do next.

Regularly, usually on Twitter, we hear of people, usually MPs, saying stuff they probably shouldn’t – usually, without thinking, usually without remorse and usually they end up losing their job. Should’ve just shut up.

When I wrote this article, on my Chromebook, while sitting in the garden in 20+ degrees heat – BBC weather said it was going to bucket down all weekend. They should just shut up.
Bonus tip – if you want to know what the weather is going to be like – look out the window.

Out of the gazillions of so called business, marketing and social media gooroos i’ve met over the years not one of them has had an original idea. Not one of them have impressed me, not one has said anything more exotic than simple common sense.
Trouble is, they are having a list education – top 10 business books that you should read if you want to be the next Branson/ Sugar/ Dragons put together – not one of them just have learned from their own mistakes and mixed what they’ve learned with their own real life experiences.
Of course the likes of Branson et al do have some valid points but they don’t have a one fix fits all outlook.

Of course I’m not saying I know everything, i’m not that much of a dick-head and, if I did I wouldn’t have called in the ‘experts’ when needed, what I’m saying is that to learn you need to make your own mistakes – fail fast, fail often, and you need to be open to admitting when you’ve fooked up and ask for help, advice, guidance.

With all these gooroos – if it’s not in the Richard Dragons’ latest book then it’s not the gospel.
Rich celeb wannabes – shut the effigy up.

There’s an old saying – you’ve got one mouth and two ears – use them in that equality and you might actually learn something.

Back to the garden, I’d just set up the BBQ (twice in the same year? Does that make a double dip heatwave?) – I taught myself how to light a BBQ. It takes forever, it’s totally not the text book way of doing it but the process has been honed over the years and the end result means evenly cooked meat which is the desired effect, is it not?

Last year was ‘annus horribilis’ for BlackBerry owner RIM – A worldwide outage went on and on for ages but thankfully, eventually, normal service was resumed. Technology likes to test us, that’s fine, but in this s(h)ituation the issue was with RIMs handling of the fall-out.
I complained and eventually ended-up with an 8gb card which I used in my new Android phone I bought after cancelling my BBerry contract. Now, it seems that RIM might actually be bought out and the company is kaput – simply because they didn’t listen and respond to their customers.

I enjoy failing, I love listening to what people have to say – if nothing else, it sharpens my bullshit detector – I love shutting up and learning.

 
FURTHER READING